that's not what he said. iran's oscar aftermath is all about making the oscars into what iran needs the oscars to be. that's what happened last year. this year's oscar aftermath was weirder. michelle obama did the best picture award last night. the oscar went to argo. iran's state sponsor media was not psyched that argo won best picture. you look at the headline.

over at the fars news agency, the same up with that enhanced the director's steacceptance speech. that is not what first lady michelle obama wore at the oscars. you can see iran's state are you positive media digitally altered michelle obama's shoulder bearing gown with the low square fut neckline and they made it look like she was wearing a sparkly silver t-shirt. they photo shopped her into a whole new outfit that she did not wear. the website enduring america.com was the first to point this out. i know people love the oscars. i know that watching what iran state tv does to the oscars the day after is always better than the oscars for me. that does it for us tonight.

we'll see you tomorrow. have a great night. and the oscar for best performance for people who claim to hate the government but secretly can't get enough goes to -- hold on, this is very exciting, america. >> these cuts do not have to happen. >> mr. president you got your tax increase. >> with four days until the sequester deadline. >> both sides are laying the groundwork to see who bleeds. >> the idea here is to fix the problem. >> both sides bought into this plan. >> there is no leadership from the president. >> the president proposed the sequester. >> he came from the white house and the president's aides. >> i got 98% of what i wanted, i'm happy. >> death by a thousand cuts. >> do not have to happen. >> i would look to the states for action. >> find another way to do it. and get it done now. >> we know there has to be a way to compromise. >> the governors, in general, are going to be upset about a

lot of the cuts, is it a doomsday scenario? are we in for real trouble? is the truth somewhere in between? >> this is a train that is running off track. >> the crisis is made up. created. >> people seem to be oblivious. >> it is the only way you're ever going to get out of both parties some spending cut. >> it is impossible to move forward, there is bipartisan on both parts, this will likely happen. >> this is a train running off track. >> that is the sound of inevitability. >> these cuts don't have to happen. congress can turn them off at any time with just a little bit of compromise. >> if you want to understand the republican's problem in dealing with the sequester, you need to understand that house speaker

john boehner is not wrong about this. >> we know, and i think the american people agree, spending is the problem. >> in a recent research center usa today poll, 70% of voters, 70% say they want congress's top legislative priority to be reducing the deficit. and 73% said it is okay if that deficit reduction is mostly or all spending cuts. but the problem, the problem for john boehner is what came next. because pew then asked people, the 70-odd% of american voters who wanted deficit reduction or spending cuts, he asked them, okay, what do you want to cut? and the pollsters very helpfully provided them, the categories to choose from.

energy, unemployment, foreign aid, poverty, health care, combatting crime, agriculture, roads, scientific research, social security security, medicare, food and drug inspection, environmental protection, veteran's benefits, and anti-terrorism defense. pick any of them, cut anything you want, 19 categories to cut, cut, cut, well, family feud time, guess which of those 19 categories the majority of people said they wanted to cut? yeah, you got it? okay, time is up. the answer is zero. of the 19 categories, there was not one, not a single category that the majority of voters wanted to cut. the only category that came close was foreign aid, 48% want to cut it, 49% don't want to cut foreign aid. and by the way, basically from the point of view of the budget it doesn't matter. foreign aid is .5% of the budget. as for the rest, 60% don't want to cut the state department 65% don't want to cut unemployment benefits, 73 don't want to cut defense.

74%, don't cut energy, 76% don't want to cut environmental protection or agriculture. 77% don't want to cut scientific research or anti-terrorism defenses. 81%, 81% don't want to cut roads and infrastructure. 82% don't want to cut medicare or anti-crime programs. 83% don't want to cut food and drug programs. 87% don't want to cut social security, 89% don't want to cut education, and 91% don't want to cut veteran's benefits. and there, in one poll is the republican's problem in dealing with the sequester. and that is why the white house feels it is increasingly doing well. government is like the america's friend with benefits. we don't say we love it. or even really say we like it like that. we wouldn't hold its hand in public, we tell it all the time,

we want a little bit of space, but damn if we don't want to keep it around. a majority of people said they actually want to increase spending in two category. 53% want to spend more on veteran's benefits, and 60% want to spend more on education. education, which by the way, gets hit pretty hard by the sequester. now, maybe we need to change or relationship status rather than our policies. because the american people actually seem to like the services the federal government provides. and they approve of the spending the federal government does to provide the services, rightly or wrongly they approve. that is the reality. and that is the problem that the republicans are facing. the house republicans did pass a plan to replace this year's sequester with other spending cuts, passing the house in december. it would abolish the defense cuts and move the $1.2 trillion cuts entirely, entirely to the discretionary spending side. now, for the record, only 19 categories of the pew polled are

discretionary, others are categories where congressional republicans want to see reduced spending. cuts to entitlement programs, medicare, medicaid, that is what john boehner wanted from the white house in exchange from the tax rest in the grand bargain. that is a top priority. and why if you listen to the debate very closely, if you listen to what john boehner is actually saying you may hear president obama talking a lot about his alternative. but you hear the republicans, you hear john boehner talking a lot about number one, how the sequester was barack obama's idea, they very cleverly called the obama-quester. how they don't mind at all. it is their leverage, they can handle it. no problem. what you don't hear a lot of, is a lot of detail about what is is house republicans would prefer to cut. that is because what they prefer to cut is not popular to cut. joining me now are steve kornacki and krystal ball.

>> thank you, ezra. >> steve, who are you wearing? >> sorry. >> this was a $12,000 sweater that nbc has generously provided. >> this is actually new, it was deemed unacceptable -- >> you do have a stylist. >> we're trying, we're trying. >> so to give you a real question here, steve, there is cognitive dissonance, people are -- they don't like government in theory, but they like it in practice. and this creates a certain amount of incoherence when we try to deal with the sequester. >> the only way i can put it, what is the overall top, the way they're dealing with congress. i think they tend to conflate

the idea of the deficit as a problem with the idea of the economy as a problem. that is why as a coincidence, three times in the last 30 years, the deficit scored as the top priority. early '90s under bush, the start of the clinton presidency, and late 2008 to the president day, they have coincided with economic downturns. and there is a classic moment, i don't think it has been made enough of. bush, perot, clinton, in a town hall debate, a woman said how has the deficit personally affected you? what she actually meant was how has the economy personally affected you? and reagan was the classic example of this, too, from his first term, the deficit started to skyrocket, coinciding with the unemployment. the unemployment crashed, in '83 and 4, even as the debt sky rocketed. mondale said i'll raise taxes to

fight the deficit and lost 49 states. >> we usually do, this is a great point, deficits come up in periods of economic hardship. it is not a good time to come up. it hurts the economy to cut the deficit quickly while the economy it weak. so krystal this is the real danger of the sequester fight, this is not a cliff or a breach or a government shutdown. it will hurt, not that badly, but hurt the economy maybe in ways people don't even recognize is coming from the sequester. it will take growth out and people having jobs out of the pretty soon we'll see shrinking, but it wouldn't be directly relatable back. >> it was interesting last week, there was polling asking people how much have you heard about the sequester from pew. and 72% of people said they either heard only a little bit about the sequester or nothing at all. they had heard very little or

nothing at all. and that is changing, the president made a concerted push to make them trace back this pole, specifically by releasing state by state estimates of what is going to happen, the agency estimates, and i looked at local papers in virginia, where i'm from. and now they're all running big stories about how this will impact their regions, specifically. that is the sort of thing that will get people's attention. and let's face it, if the sequester really does go through and is not altered where you don't restore funding and defense in particular, they are going to see changes that will be noticeable in a lot of communities. >> and steve, why did the white house wait so long to launch a real public education around the sequester. i mean, a lot of people complained and said they were not actually having the agencies going out saying here is what will be hit the worst. releasing things state by state,

they kind of waited until last week. >> i wonder if part of it was fatigue, they went through the middle of last year and the election, and the whole fiscal cliff. i wonder if there was a sense that people needed a break. and also there could have been a recognition at this point that if you look at what the republicans have to fall back on now, obviously the problem is the house, you have lindsey graham talking about the flexibility, all you have now are boehner and the republicans, i think the margin was 215 to 209. he recognized if he put that plan up right now he probably couldn't even get it in the house. the republicans don't have anything from the house side to perhaps at the moment, either. >> i keep wondering, krystal, what do you think is the end game? there are not serious negotiations, i don't think

there will be a huge market that forces a quick negotiation. it is not clear what happens legislatively before any action. >> i mean, republicans, they basically want some form of cuts. so they would prefer to have this sort of meat cleaver approach, than to have a compromise with revenue. they feel it is a better deal for them. and democrats feel they don't want to shift the programs over to places like medicaid or medicare. obviously, they're doing public negotiating of their positions rather than coming together to work out a deal. so i don't see it happening this week. >> steve kornacki, and krystal ball, we'll make sure more people know about this. i don't think the republican's position on the sequester, and i don't mean the political one we just talked about.

the policy one, what we actually want to get done. so i have asked a very smart republican policy wonk to explain it to me. and there was something at the oscar, something so short, the shortest nominated film ever. and you will see it right here, get some chips and sauce and get back here. it's not what you think. it's a phoenix with 4 wheels. it's a hawk with night vision goggles.

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i'm curious, if you were negotiating a deal and got everything you wanted or on the other hand got part of the five things you want. wouldn't you go with everything you almost wanted deal? this is why i don't understand the republican position on the sequester, it makes no sense at all to me. but somebody will try to explain it next. [ female announcer ] total effects user kim scott still looks amazing.

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and other allergy symptoms -- all in one pill. zyrtec-d®. at the pharmacy counter. i stand by those commitments, to make the reforms for smart spending cuts. but we also need republicans to adopt the same approach to tax reform as speaker boehner championed just two months ago. >> the president says we have to have another tax increase in order to avoid the sequester. well, mr. president, you got your tax increase. it is time to cut spending here in washington. >> i don't understand this debate. i don't understand the republican position on the sequester. and i don't mean the politics and the polls. we already talked about the polling doesn't seem to look so good for the republicans. what matters more than that, the puzzling, underlying position, the policy doesn't make a lot of sense given their budget goals. as i understand it, republicans

have five basic goals, number one, they say is cut the deficit. number two, cut entitlement spending. number three, protect defense spending and possibly even increase it. four, make the tax code simple by cleaning out deductions and loopholes. and five, five of course is always lower tax rates. now, the white house is able to cut a deal with republicans that accomplish one, two, three, four, it wouldn't lower tax rates but it will do all the other things. republicans won't entertain that deal. they say no, no, we prefer the sequester instead of one, two, three, and four. they get much less than a larger deal, they won't touch entitlement spending really at all. they will see defense spending go through an incredibly big cut. rather than striking a deal with the white house and accomplish four of their five, they're accomplishing part of one, one,

and badly hurting another for a net zero? so what exactly is the republican policy strategy here? what am i missing? here to answer that is ben dominic, the editor of "the conservative morning news letter." great to have you. >> i think what you're missing is a number. and i think that number is 158, which is the number of house republicans who have shown up since 2006 out of 232 today. and of those republicans, i think if you look at what is priority for them, their priority list actually doesn't include number three, the defense spending, which goes back to the calculation that the president made when the whole process started. which is an assumption i think founded previously from the previous decade, from a lot of republicans that currently occupy leadership. which is basically the

republicans who are interested in defending defense spending. who have been preaching for the past several years how important it was to protect that, to isolate it away from any cuts. and those republicans, while they still occupy the leadership and still hold positions of power don't necessarily represent the base, for whom the financial crisis is really their equivalent of 9/11 now. really the single way they analyze policy. >> i buy that the new generation of republicans don't care that much about defense spending, i think you're right about that. but going back to the sequester. >> sure. >> that leaves one, two, three, and four, there is no doubt you can get more deficit reduction, total money shaved off the deficit if you go to the bigger deal and include tax increases. there is no doubt the two sides can come together, the offer, 1.8 trillion, is significantly larger than what is in the sequester alone. and then second to that, they also believe very strongly, the key is entitlement spending, not

all spending is created equal. the medicare, social security spending, the white house would be able to get into those programs. but they are not without going outside of the boundaries of the sequester. so what about the rest of that? >> the problem is you have to have an assumption of competence on the conservative base, the republicans as a whole, when it comes time to negotiate with the white house they will come out with a better deal. and i think that frankly the base believes they're not capable of doing such a thing, they have their doubts about the ability of republicans to negotiate any better situation. and i think the second part of this, they are skeptical on the part of the base right now, about the willingness of republicans to cut in any real sense. and any negotiation that backs off from the sequester, would, i think, be read as a retreat from cuts, retreat from being willing to reduce to size and scope of

government. because of that, there is an unwiliness with the house and leadership of the republican party to do anything along those lines, because that will be sold as a retreat to be really fiscally conservative. we saw that under george w. bush, laying the seeds of the tea party. >> but wasn't what happened in the previous decade, they made a bunch of decisions around spending because they wouldn't touch taxes, and blew up the deficit, that was at least part of the narrative. underneath that is the other question, when they are looking at a deal like this and saying we don't believe that our leadership can come to a better deal, they don't have to undo the sequester until a deal is done. it just seems to me, underneath all this is the weird decision to treat all spending in the tax code as a tax increase and not be willing to break this pledge. >> but ezra, is your problem is that the sequester exists or is it just that the cuts are not smart enough? i think in the conservative

base, they don't buy the difference between the smart cuts and the dumb cuts, i don't think they see it as being all that critical, especially when it is sort of the question is the world going to collapse if we rewind to what government spending was going to be at the beginning of the month? i think it is more on the question of the leadership in the republican party and their conservative base, understanding if they retreat in any way, if their view is retreating in any way from holding the line on spending cuts from this nature, even if they are stupid, in the parlance of washington, then i think they will be viewed as being cowardly, saying they don't want government to be as big as the president does. >> if you're right that the house republicans don't believe anymore in the smart cuts and dumb cuts, that is scary. >> pleasure to be with you. remember this guy? this guy right here could ruin

our economic recovery. if you give me two minutes, i will explain it all to you. bunga/bunga is next. [ male announcer ] i've seen incredible things. otherworldly things. but there are some things i've never seen before. this ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. which is good for business. because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air. suddenly, faraway places don't seem so...far away. ♪ or just seem to fade away, day by day? don't compromise. new vidal sassoon pro series from the original salon genius. starts vibrant, stays vibrant. precision mix formula saturates each strand for 100% gray coverage. hydrablock conditioner helps fight fade out for up to 8 weeks. new vidal sassoon lets you say no to compromise

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it is time now, it is time for the favorite part of the show, the one where i get two minutes to explain, whatever i want, even if the producers think it will be bad for ratings. but how bad can this one be for ratings? it is about this guy.

[ speaking in a foreign language ] >> the bunga/bunga, who is that? and why do you need to know about him today? well, let's get the clock. okay, that is berlusconi, the prime minister of italy, the guy who made the words a catch phrase, the guy thrown out of office because the banks and global financial markets said they would stop giving italy any money if they didn't kick him out of office. that is rare, he is really unliked. but his successor worked well with europe, the problem is that voters didn't like him that much. those pesky voters. over the last 24 hours, italy has had an election, and the winner is nobody.

monte's coalition didn't win. berlusconi is in trial, facing sex with a minor, there is a third major party, kind of a protest led by, i'm not kidding, run by a comedian blogger, who has an anti-europe agenda, he wants every kid to get a tablet. he did really well. it has to be approved by both the house and senate. the parties hate each other, so they probably can't join together either. that means italy will probably have to hold another election in the coming months. so why should you care? well, remember the whole europe crisis thing we were really worried about in 2011 and 2012? well, it is calming down. but the key troubled places like italy, if they are ungovernable, that is the kind of thing that can make it flare up again, and

if it does that can hurt our economy really bad, at a time when we're dealing with the sequester and plenty of other issues. they wrote, this is the perspective, they didn't do the right thing, instead, gave surprising support to politicians who reject austerity, and in some cases the euro, this could be a major problem if it proves contagious. done. and what is surprising, a court's decision about concealed weapons. a hint? wayne lapierre hates this decision. the developments in the gun control debate are coming up next. [ rosa ] i'm rosa and i quit smoking with chantix.

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ideas and you want to give them careful study. you say you're working with congress and you want to make sure everyone takes time to do it right. you don't do it because you're a peachy person, you do it because you want to win, without creating huge enemies who make you want to lose. that is not what the nra boss did. he went after dianne feinstein, who took time today to clarify lapierre's remark. >> we are now facing the single most devastating attack on the second amendment that this country has ever seen. dianne feinstein, herself, commented that she has had her gun ban legislation in her desk for over a year. waiting for the right time to introduce it. really? waiting for an unspeakable act to occur, so the american people

could be persuaded to by her political agenda? see, it is not about making our kids or our streets safer. it is all about their decades-old agenda. >> what i said is that we have been working on this for a year. yeah, it is a rather complicated piece of legislation, because it exempts 2200 hunting, sporting weapons, by make and model. and that took some work of staff and consultation with real gun experts to be sure that we could be correct on all counts. so it was not a bill just quickly slapped together. it had some thankful consideration. >> lapierre and the nra made senator feinstein into their latest villain, in the march edition of the magazine, america's first freedom, they horned on the dangers of background checks. saying the gun allies looked and

saw the opportunity for which they had been waiting. murdered children. and their teachers have been turned into the political pre text for gun registration, rather cynical, isn't it? well, yes, that argument is quite cynical. but there are republicans, despite 85% of americans who say they favor background checks remain unconvinced. >> i don't think we're that close to a deal. and there absolutely will not be record-keeping on legitimate, law-abiding gun owners in this country. and if they want to eliminate the benefits of actually trying to prevent the sales to people who are mentally ill and criminals, all they need to do is create a record-keeping and it will kill this bill. >> the nra magazine warns the readers that background checks will lead to government taking all of your guns away registration, extinction. they wouldn't have written it in

all caps, that is what i learned from e-mails over the years. and probably both senator patrick leahy, and the court of appeals. he released several gun legislation bills to be marked up on thursday, including senator feinstein's ban, they will push for a session on that. meanwhile, they will hold a hearing on wednesday, as for the tenth circuit court of appeals, they ruled there was no right to carry it in public. the nra filed a brief in favor of concealed carry, a brief which apparently didn't convince the court of anything. the nra may need to work on that friend-making capability. because whatever it is doing now is not working all that well. joining me, political analyst,

johnathan capehart, i am happy to see you. >> that is right, taking over. >> jonathan, lapierre almost seems like he was invented by the gun control lobby. if he didn't exist they would have had to create him to carry on this campaign. because if you watch him, you do not think this is a sober group of people you want having significant power in the american political system. he makes the nra look terrifying. >> he makes the nra look terrifying. but you know what? the message that he has been spreading since newtown has been working for him and for the nra. it is frightening for the american people to hear what he has to say. the fear-mongering since newtown. but the flip side, we hear the next day or week, the best fundraising numbers they have had for a long time. and gun sales going through the roof. if he didn't exist we would have to make him up.

he is this lightning rod for both sides. i mean, both sides get benefit from it. >> but is that actually working for the nra, this is what i always wonder, you have groups in american life who manage to fundraise off the american extreme. and there it always the deal of pushing it through congress. he created a lot of enemies who may have wanted to drop it at a certain point. but now they're more dedicated of the cause. >> i am always skeptical when groups or candidates say they're fundraising. i mean, herman cain said he had his best week ever after the scandal. but i do think the nra, which is em bodied by wayne lapierre is his best friend. because he is so right to where most americans are, he makes the case for them. in many cases, dianne feinstein, other americans, you see the nra, moving, backing background

checks not wanting to go what they would call the slippery slope of registering firearm owners. i think if you're a democrat you want wayne lapierre out there as much as possible because he just spouts these ridiculous theories about the government wanting to take your gun, or in a hurricane you want to have an assault weapon. because you need to fight against the raging folks in brooklyn, coming over the border. >> you know, gangs. >> that is right, keep him out there, he does good for folks who want to move forward on some of the gun rights legislation. >> and speaking of moving forward. i mean, the effort to get universal background checks because as many as a third of gun sales don't have background checks. and private sales have been stalling. you're having joe manchin, the senator, where do you think it goes?

>> i quite frankly don't know. but i do think it is good that there are going to be hearings this week on all of these bills. i think there is a difference between background checks and then what tom coburn is talking about. personal registration, there are stories in our paper, these deals that are coming together. but when coburn sort of threw cold water on it, it was not so much about background checks. it was this narrow issue of will there be a registry of personal issues. when you listen to the folks, it is a huge hurdle for some democrats and republicans to get over. then we could see something along the lines of background checks. i think assault weapons though, will be a bridge too far for some republicans and democrats. >> assault weapons looked very tough to me. but i want to talk about the

background checks, this kind of registry that we talk about, one thing that happened, the damage control space, the nra and gun rights activists, efforts to constrict the amount of data, the groups, we can't get that trace data. that is a very, very big deal. and the fact -- i have to register to do, i think at this point i have to give them my driver's license to get sudafed, and to get firearms without having to register seems remarkable to me. >> and even if you get a background check that doesn't stay within the national registry, disappearing within 22 hours. i think it is a bridge too far, with trying to make a deal. there is -- you're right, i think the nra will make the argument that there needs to be a national registry around people with mental illness, but definitely not for people with firearms which seems sort of an

odd thing. but i think, you know, this is a debate that goes on. the assault weapons ban is dead, you talk to the white house. they don't even mention it. they talk about gun trafficking and the background checks. but in some ways, the assault weapons ban will give the moderate democrats in these states like north carolina. if they were able to go to the senate floor, that does them good in states like north carolina and arkansas. >> and gives them the political cover to vote on other issues that are further down the chain. but are still helpful. >> yes, exactly. >> and this will be one of the things to see, whether or not we get a reprise, to give it a vote refrain. good to see you both, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, ezra. what is different about our military spending, and why i think the defense cuts in the sequester, if done well, could certainly be a good thing. that is next. , bjorn earns unlimited rewards for his small business. take these bags to room 12 please.

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i would tell you what is coming up next on "the last word," but if i did, if i did, you might be thinking about that instead of enjoying what the internet came up with this week, which is taylor swift mixed with goats. >> ♪ ♪ i'm lying on the cold, hard ground ♪ ♪ ♪ trouble, trouble, trouble. trouble. >> come on, are you really going to change the channel after i showed you taylor swift mixed with goats? . . [ tylenol bottle ] me too! and nasal congestion. [ tissue box ] he said nasal congestion. yeah...i heard him. [ female announcer ] tylenol® cold multi-symptom nighttime relieves nasal congestion. nyquil® cold and flu doesn't. the end. lovely read susan. but isn't it time to turn the page on your cup of joe? gevalia, or a cup of johan, is like losing yourself in a great book. may i read something?

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after the korean war, the military budget fell by 43%, by 43%. after the vietnam war it fell by 33%, by a solid third. after the soviet union fell and the cold war ended the military budget fell by 36%. this is a pattern of military spending in america. it goes way up in times of war, but then, and this is important, it falls right back down after. in times of peace. now, over the past ten years, we have been at war and our spending has subsequently gone way up. i want to tell you these numbers because i think they're absolutely astonishing. in 2001 under president bush, the military was $287 billion. $287 billion. in 2012, after accounting for the military budget and the war spending in iraq and afghanistan.

it was about $700 billion, way more than double. now, here is something else kind of amazing. that is a bigger increase in total in spending than we saw in either the vietnam war or the cold war, and here is where it left us. we're spending more than china, the uk, france, indiana, saudi arabia, india, and canada, combined. we're spending more on our military than the next dozen high spenders combined. our wars, now, however are ending. officially the war in iraq is over. the war in afghanistan is drawing down, osama bin laden is dead. spending dropped somewhere between 43 and 33%. now speak about that after you listen to these warnings about the military sequester. >> i can't over state what the cuts would do to our military, essentially hollowing out our

armed military forces. >> and the president laid out no plan for the sequester. >> that we're convinced would hollow out the force and inflict serious damage to the national defense. >> all right. if the sequester goes into effect, the full cut to the defense budget will be about 31%. think about that, the war on terror increased, and the cut to the defense budget, even with the sequester, will be less than it was either of those. it kind of puts all the doom saying in perspective, doesn't it? now, sequester is a really stupid way to cut the defense budget. i'm not arguing that point. it is brain dead, but that $500 billion cut, that level of cut is not necessarily stupid to make to the defense budget. and making a 500 billion cut is not necessarily a bad way to reduce the deficit.

when the democrats talk about tax reform and say they want to replace the sequester and almost all the defense cuts with revenues, what they are saying specifically is they want to limit itemized deductions for the rich. now those words, that is kind of policy term. doesn't mean much to most people. but when you hear it, this is what you should hear politicians say. they want to limit tax policies, to donate the charity, pay their state and local taxes and to buy homes. that is what the itemized deductions are for the rich, the state and local tax deduction, overwhelmingly. we're talking about cutting them for rich people when we talk about the deficit. that is what president obama wants to do in the compromise. and the republican's response to it is absolutely not. they completely prefer the sequester to that. i don't understand either side's position here. i don't understand why liberals would prefer to fund the government through a mechanism

that hit charities, the housing industry and high tax states than by cutting defense spending. and i don't understand why republicans prefer to cut defense spending than to hit charities, high tax, mostly through blue states that get subsidized. the sequester is bad policy, terrible economic policy. i would like to get rid of it altogether. but if we keep it, we absolutely have to give the agencies the ability to make decisions about how to make those cuts. but if we did that, and we can't get rid of it, if we gave agencies that discretion, then if you give me a choice between 5 billion by cutting spending on homes and charities and state and local taxes, i think i would take the defense cuts. every other time we ended our wars we have brought defense spending way down. if this time is different, if we allow ourselves to get trapped in a mind set of being in a permanent war and require the

hike in spending, that is dangerous, and not just because of the budget. you probably missed something unprecedented at the oscars. the shortest short ever nominated. but you can't miss this. it is so cool. and it is next. ha ha ha! no no no! not today! ha ha ha! ha ha ha! jimmy how happy are folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico? happier than dikembe mutumbo blocking a shot. get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more.

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here are the nominees for the best animated short film "adam, and dog," maggie simpson, and the longest daycare. david silverman. paperman, john cars. >> and the oscar goes to? "paperman". >> it didn't win its category, but it was a game changer, don't

tell me you don't have time to watch it for yourself. because fresh guacamole is the shortest work to get nominated. only one minute long. it took two months to shoot, and another two months to edit for a minute, 36, and coolest of all, produced without any computer effects at all. so here to witness one of the coolest, is the film, fresh guacamole, by press.